


Cooking Lessons

by Dragonflies_and_Katydids



Series: Krem Story Time [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 14:56:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5789761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/pseuds/Dragonflies_and_Katydids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which I drop canon in the blender and hit "pulverize." Fifteen-year-old Krem gets sent for a summer with one of his dad's friends from the army. It isn't exactly what he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cooking Lessons

**Author's Note:**

> We're doing a Krem prompt-a-thon over on Tumblr. The prompt was Krem's father/son relationship with the Iron Bull.
> 
> (Pssst, join us in the madness. We'll be posting the prompts to the challenge page here on AO3, so you don't even have to be on Tumblr.)

Krem stays in his room as long as he can, lying on the bed and watching the ceiling fan spin in lazy circles. It's pretty boring, but whatever. They can make him stay here, but they can't make him like it, and he wants to be sure they know it. All of them, even if the only witness right now is the one person who got just as much say in this as Krem did.

Which would be exactly none.

Maybe that should give them some place to start getting to know each other--the two of them against Krem's parents--but Krem's not really in the mood to bond with anyone, especially not one of his dad's old army buddies. It doesn't matter that he's never met the guy before today, because he's met enough army assholes in his life to know the type. That joining the army is the only thing Krem really wants to do with his life just makes him hate them more.

Eventually hunger wins over the desire to Make A Point, and he slouches out of the bedroom and down the hall toward the kitchen. He's kind of hoping to sneak in, grab something portable, and sneak back out, but the light is on and he can hear someone humming over the sound of pots rattling and banging.

He considers going back to his room, but he hasn't eaten anything since breakfast, and the smell of onions cooking in butter is enough to pull him forward. It's not like he's got to talk. Hell, the guy probably doesn't want to talk to him, either. Which is okay by Krem, because the last thing he wants is some fifty-year-old stranger trying to be "hip" or whatever he thinks kids say these days. This summer's going to be long enough without that.

The second he steps into the kitchen, the guy...Bull, and what kind of name is that?...looks up and grins at him. It sits oddly with the scars and the eyepatch, and Krem shifts uncomfortably, gaze skimming around the room to avoid eye contact.

"Dinner'll be in about an hour," Bull says cheerfully. "Grab a seat, we can talk a bit."

Krem barely controls a lip curl. Of course he wants to talk, when all Krem wants is to eat and escape, back to his room and whichever of his friends he can find on Skype at this hour. He doesn't want to be here in some stranger's house because his parents can't deal with his "weirdness", and he sure as hell didn't want to fly across the entire country to do it. He wants to be at home with his friends, not stuck here with somebody who's probably going to play Reveille at oh-five-hundred hours and want to go for a three mile run.

At least he hasn't said anything about the reason Krem is here, though that will probably happen soon enough.

"Or you can help me cook," Bull adds as an afterthought.

The only excuse Krem has for what he says next is that he's pissed, and hoping for some company with that emotion. "Cooking is what girls do." He doesn't really think that, but he's known plenty of his dad's other retired army friends, and they're all sensitive as hell about anything feminine.

Bull just laughs, though. "Not so's I've noticed," he says. "But hey, it's not a requirement. Just thought you might like something to do. I hate sitting on planes all day, always leaves me antsy."

Krem narrows his eyes but takes a seat at the counter to watch Bull work. The humming starts up again, and Krem has to stop himself from humming along when he recognizes the tune. He doesn't want to be here, and he's not going to pretend everything's fine, that his parents haven't foisted him off on some friend of theirs who didn't say no fast enough.

At least Bull isn't a talker, and watching him is actually kind of entertaining. He's always exactly where he needs to be when he needs to be there, stirring this pot or pulling that thing out of the oven. He also doesn't seem to be bothered by having an audience, and Krem is jealous for a second. He'd love to be that unself-conscious: if someone stared at him while he was swinging one of those knives, he'd probably cut off a finger.

Watching Bull chop the vegetables is strangely mesmerizing, his hands flying like he's on some cooking show and producing a steady stream of perfectly diced vegetables. Krem could spend an hour chopping carrots and still not get them into such nearly-identical pieces.

Bull looks up and catches him watching. Krem tilts his chin up, prepared to be laughed at, but Bull doesn't say anything, just slides the cutting board across the counter to him. An onion follows it, rolling off the edge and straight into the hand Krem puts up to catch it at the last second.

Krem hesitates. His mother's spent a ton of time trying to get him to cook, but with her, it's the same argument as always, another attempt to get him to behave "properly." Bull, though...Bull isn't even looking at him anymore, and he really doesn't seem to care one way or the other. If Krem doesn't pick up the knife, he suspects Bull will come back to it in a couple minutes and finish the chopping without commenting.

He picks up the onion like it might explode, turning it in his fingers as the papery skin crackles.

"Easiest if you cut it in half this way," Bull says, reaching across the counter to draw an imaginary line from the stubby root ends to the tip before turning back to whatever's in the oven.

And that's how it goes: every time Krem pauses, Bull suggests what he should do next. None of it ever seems like an order, and if Krem's diced onion isn't nearly as symmetrical as it might be, Bull doesn't seem to notice as he tips it into the pan.

"Thanks," Bull says, and it's the way he says it: like this is no big deal, just a minor favor Krem's done for him. Krem's mother would have turned it into a production. Maybe with trophies.

"No problem," Krem says, reaching for the green pepper. He might as well keep going, right? This isn't the same as hanging out with his friends, but it's marginally better than watching the ceiling fan go around and around and around.

Okay, maybe more than marginally.


End file.
